Shooting the Gap: A Satellite View of Last Night's Squall Line

Late yesterday evening and into last night a large squall developed in the Central U.S., stretching from northern WI all the way down through northern TX. Shown below is the Overshooting Top (OT) detections, visible imagery, and flight routes at 0055 UTC. Given the large spatial extent of the convection, there were significant constrains to a large number of flight routes. Note the heavy amount of traffic scooting through the gap SW of Minneapolis Center, and especially the gap in the OK panhandle where there were a handful of overshooting top detections on either side.

120615 0055 UTC Overshooting Top detection, visible, and ASDI flight routes